Rangers' St. Louis, Moore bonding in grief

New York Rangers star Martin St. Louis walks with his family during the funeral on Sunday for his mother, France, at Laval, Que. The Rangers team, along with some current and past NHL stars, attended the funeral. (Joel Lemay, QMI Agency)

MIKE ZEISBERGER, QMI Agency

They sat in a balcony of the funeral home here in the hometown of Marty St. Louis on Sunday, some quietly weeping as the veteran winger said goodbye to his recenty deceased mom.

The New York Rangers have been St. Louis’ hockey family for only 10 weeks, but the relationship between player and team cuts much deeper than that, a close bond symbolized by the tears trickling down the cheeks of some of his new teammates. Indeed, in the adversity that struck St. Louis earlier this month when his mother France, 63, unexpectedly passed away, the Rangers have become a much closer group, both on the ice and off.

On this sun-splashed day, less than 24 hours after they had spanked the Montreal Canadiens 7-2 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final at the Bell Centre, Dominic Moore and the entire Rangers team arrived on a pair of buses for the memorial service at Complexe Sainte-Dorothee, joining the likes of Steven Stamkos, Mike Smith, Teddy Purcell, Guy Lafleur and Rej